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Belfast Live
Belfast Live
National
Jane Corscadden

NI election 2022: What is Northern Ireland's Single Transferable Vote system and how does it work?

The electorate in Northern Ireland has gone to the polls to vote in the Assembly election on May 5.

The system used for voting in this election is Single Transferable Vote (STV), and works by ranking candidates in order of preference.

It will be used to decide on the 90 Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) that will take up posts at Stormont.

Read more: Northern Ireland election 2022: Deadline for registering to vote

It's a voting system designed to allow voters more choice and to avoid votes being "wasted", which some people argue is common in other systems such as first past the post.

It's a proportional system, which means parties will win roughly the same proportion of seats in the assembly as the votes they receive.

Voters rank candidates in order of preference and are able to vote for as many or as few candidates as they like.

They write a 1 beside their favourite candidate, a 2 beside their second favourite and so on.

When counting begins, a quota is calculated for each constituency using a mathematical formula based on the number of seats and the number of votes cast.

The first preference votes are all counted and any candidates who meet the quota are elected.

If a candidate has more votes than they need to meet the quota then their extra votes are transferred to other candidates - so the candidate marked "2" on those ballot papers gets those votes instead.

Meanwhile, the candidate with the fewest votes is knocked out and their second preferences are transferred to other candidates.

The same process continues round by round with the lowest candidate being knocked out and their votes being transferred to candidates who are still in the race.

Eventually, either five candidates meet the quota or there are only five candidates left and are deemed elected.

In the very unlikely event that nobody meets the quota, the five candidates remaining after everybody else has been knocked out are elected.

Read more: Rules on taking your dog to the polling station in NI

Read more: Rules on using a pencil to cast your vote in NI explained

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